


Hallelujah, or, All I ever learned from love (A Metaphysics of Memory and Desire)

by The Acrobat (the_acrobat)



Category: House M.D.
Genre: M/M, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-04-04
Updated: 2006-04-04
Packaged: 2017-10-04 22:31:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_acrobat/pseuds/The%20Acrobat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This story is for <a href="http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/"><b>extrabitter</b></a>, whose story, "<a href="http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/710.html">Metaphysics</a>", I violated with literary theory, scissors, tape, and a whole slew of literature and philosophy for <a href="http://remixredux.livejournal.com/">We Invented the Remix... Redux IV: I know what you did last remix</a> in "<a href="http://rue-du-hoquet.livejournal.com/7748.html">UBI AMOR IBI OCULUS EST (Metaphysics: The Ticket That Exploded Remix)</a>". This story isn't a remix of "Metaphysics" so much as a nod to it, a sort of sequel intended to complement <a href="http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/"><b>extrabitter</b></a>'s story. You should probably read "<a href="http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/710.html">Metaphysics</a>" first, if you haven't already, because it will enrich your reading experience and it's a neat story. Thanks to the observant <a href="http://ekaterinn.livejournal.com/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://ekaterinn.livejournal.com/"><b>ekaterinn</b></a> for excellent beta-work and being willing to argue word choice with me for hours and hours.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Hallelujah, or, All I ever learned from love (A Metaphysics of Memory and Desire)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is for [](http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/profile)[**extrabitter**](http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/), whose story, "[Metaphysics](http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/710.html)", I violated with literary theory, scissors, tape, and a whole slew of literature and philosophy for [We Invented the Remix... Redux IV: I know what you did last remix](http://remixredux.livejournal.com/) in "[UBI AMOR IBI OCULUS EST (Metaphysics: The Ticket That Exploded Remix)](http://rue-du-hoquet.livejournal.com/7748.html)". This story isn't a remix of "Metaphysics" so much as a nod to it, a sort of sequel intended to complement [](http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/profile)[**extrabitter**](http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/)'s story. You should probably read "[Metaphysics](http://extrabitter.livejournal.com/710.html)" first, if you haven't already, because it will enrich your reading experience and it's a neat story. Thanks to the observant [](http://ekaterinn.livejournal.com/profile)[**ekaterinn**](http://ekaterinn.livejournal.com/) for excellent beta-work and being willing to argue word choice with me for hours and hours.

_It's not a cry you can hear at night  
It's not somebody who's seen the light  
It's a cold and it's a broken hallelujah  
\- Leonard Cohen_

In the hotel that night, Wilson thinks of a fearful symmetry, of a conference ten years before, of House motionless in a narrow, complicated bed, trapped in a web of tubes and wires and of the dread which seeped into his blood like a drug. Everything - the beach, the white sand sprinkled with perfect shells, with stones as smooth as skin, the blue water and the luxury hotel - is tainted now. Everything is coloured by fear and loss, pain and dread, ten years later.

The bed they're in now is nothing like that bed, that narrow android's bed that transformed wet, messy, pulsing human life into electricity, ones and zeros, to preserve the code, to preserve life, that bed that House lay in as he tried hard to give up on life, but was pulled back again and again by the machine. This bed is wide and clean with pure white sheets that smell faintly of tropical flowers and House is sprawled across it, warm and alive, snoring softly. His chest rises and falls with each even breath in a gentle, peaceful rhythm that rolls over them like a lullaby. Wilson lies stretched out on his side and watches him. Naked and still with sleep, he is as beautiful as moonlight.

They're in Hawaii for a conference. Differential diagnosis for déjà vu, Wilson thinks. He could write a book about it. Cuddy sent them down early so that House's leg could recover from the flight and they spent the day on the beach in the sun, the white sand sticking to their skin like sugar, drinking cocktails with little umbrellas in them and reading, House blissed out on Vicodin, Wilson blissed out on House. But there were shadows on the beach as well, darkness and bitterness in House's pain and Wilson's memories.

There's a grass skirt tossed over a chair on top of a Hawaiian shirt and a pair of too-big shorts. In the airport, House bought him the skirt and Wilson tried to make him laugh through his pain by doing the hula. "That's the limbo," House said, but he laughed. Then, Wilson was hit by a cocktail of memories and grew quiet. House looked at him sideways and popped a Vicodin, but he didn't ask. Since he could never recall the date of his and Julie's anniversary, Wilson wonders why his memory of that week is still so strong.

Ten years ago, when he wasn't there, House needed him. Ten years ago, there was only Hawaii, a digital clock slowly blinking minutes, hours through the night, and dread as thick as blood. There was a road-trip that was never meant to be a road-trip, familiar sights made foreign in the dusky dawn light, fear, and finally stillness. Wilson didn't believe in prescience, then. But he does now.

At dawn, Wilson still hasn't slept. He has to give a talk on acute arrhythmogenicity of first-dose chemotherapeutic agents in children in four hours, but that's the last thing on his mind. He gets out of bed and calls room service, fingers quick on the keys, hoping food will soothe his stomach, calm his nerves. He can't decide between the mango and the pineapple, so he doesn't. Why not have both? He eats the fruit on the balcony with his fingers, crushing the sweet flesh with his teeth, letting the juices dribble down his chin onto his neck. The fruit isn't as fresh as he had expected, and before long, he sets the bowl aside.

The sun over the beach rises in shades of rich pink and gold which spill through the violet dawn like paint smeared on canvas with a palette knife. He gazes out at the water and sighs.

Near seven, he senses warm breath on his neck. House is behind him, his cheeks pillow-creased, his movement slow and languid with sleep. He rests one hand in the small of Wilson's back, gently, keeping his weight on his cane.

"What are you thinking about?" he asks, his voice quiet.

Wilson sighs. "The last time I was here," he says, "You in Princeton, with Stacy. I never stop thinking about that. What could have happened."

House still surprises Wilson sometimes. It would be so easy to be sarcastic here, to make light of Wilson's melancholy, but he doesn't. House wraps an arm around Wilson's waist, pulls him close and whispers in his ear, "I'm here, right? I'm still here. I'm in Hawaii with you. Bet you never thought I'd come. Let's have a good time."

And Wilson thinks of the grass skirt, of the long white beaches and the palm trees that sway in the wind, of bowls of fruit from room service and of the jokes for House that he's hidden in his talk, little fragments of humour that he knows no one else will catch. He thinks of House buried deep inside him, moving with him, building slowly towards ecstasy. He thinks of Princeton-Plainsboro and Cuddy and Vogler and how he almost lost his job for House, how angry he was, and how he wouldn't hesitate to do it again, and again, and again. Yes, he thinks. Yes. We're here in Hawaii. The medical profession has dropped a trip to Hawaii in the guise of a conference in our laps, and we are both here. Let's have a good time.

He turns to House, there on the balcony looking over the beach, and plants a sloppy, wet kiss on his ear. "I love you, you know," he says, low in his throat, his voice tripping over his words before stumbling on again. "I don't know what I'd do if I lost you. Promise you won't get lost again."

House doesn't answer, but when he turns and kisses him back, Wilson reads his answer in his humid breath, in the gentleness of his lips. He knows that as selfish as he seems, as self-destructive as House can be, he doesn't know what he'd do without Wilson, that he wants to be there with Wilson, that he loves Wilson, that Wilson makes him happy. Wilson knows that the kiss is as true as a promise and means just as much, more even because it isn't a contract that can be broken but a gesture of pure feeling. And in that moment, like a curtain lifting, the pall of dread and death peels back from the landscape, leaving the beach pure, burgeoning with anticipation and life. In that moment, in his mind, Hawaii becomes a place of love and life and laughter. And then, only then, Wilson smiles.


End file.
